Olympic Air

Heraklion to Athens Athens to Rome. Flights both excellent planes clean (A319 and A320) and flight attendants very professional. ATH-FCO a cold meal was served - in both segments they gave us cookies in the shape of Christmas trees. Complimentary beverages including wine served on ATH-FCO segment and complimentary non-alcoholic beverages on HER-ATH segment. My husband and I were both impressed with the quality on Olympic Air.

AMS-ATH return. New Airbus aircraft friendly and polite cabin crew with elegant uniforms. Legroom was great service outstanding sweets before take-off meal service including drink rounds. They are trying hard to provide an excellent service and to my opinion they did.

CDG-ATH A320. Welcomed by a friendly crew seats quite comfortable. I was sitting one row behind the emergency exit and the cabin crew came to brief the passengers about the operation of the doors in case of emergency. Started =service with drinks and then a hot meal. After that more drinks as well as coffee or tea along with a box of chocolate cookies. Overall good service smiling crew and good value for money bearing in mind I booked the ticket a few days ago and the plane was nearly full. Still room for improvement though as there is still no in flight entertainment or a good magazine to keep the passengers busy.

Delays are pathogenic to Olympic Air. ATH-TIA left with 25 minutes delay. The plane was a Q400 new but uncomfortable and noisy - had a window seat which was not reclining and there was no window shutter. Newspapers were not offered lunch was not offered on a tray but a plastic box with sandwich and a confection. After drinks / coffee they gave us box with cookies. Return with A319 change of equipment was probably because there was still a problem of delays. The aircraft did not have a business class area. We were offered newspapers (in the old way manner left on the galley to be picked up) but this time food offered on a tray - tasteless and indifferent. I could not complain but the service was not remarkable. The hostesses were all girls (there is clearly a problem with men stewards) friendly and more than helpful.

LHR-ATH new A320. Aircraft was clean but grey and gloomy. Food surprisingly good good coffee by airline standards. Service excellent. The return flight was another new A320 whose blue seats gave economy class a feeling of being a cut above budget-airline equivalents. Food and service of a high standard although trays could have been cleared away sooner - and the aircraft was rather warm. Check-in for both flights was a breeze. Olympic Air has made a promising start with a new impression of efficiency that will be a revelation to anyone familiar with its predecessor. But London to Athens is a most competitive routes and at the moment Aegean still edges it offering in-flight entertainment where OA had none (a surprising omission) and its own magazine (aside from a one-off souvenir magazine commemorating OA's heritage OA's magazine is in fact that of the parent company MIG beefed up with OA-specific content and is in Greek only). Furthermore the frequent plugging of MIG's other brands was seriously off-putting even it did mean free biscuits promoting its food arm. Hearing "Thank you flying Olympic Air part of Marfin Investment Group" at the end of the flight is a surefire way to drain the glamour out of the Olympic brand name and any remaining romance out of flying altogether. Nobody loves a conglomerate so a bit more subtlety would go a long way. I'll keep my eye on OA in the future but for the time being will probably continue to choose Aegean for this route.